1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and device for generating ultrahigh-pressure, and more particularly to a method and device which enables the generation of ultrahigh pressure in a space partly surrounded by an optically transparent material with supplying light energy to the space externally.
2. Description of the Related Art
Although belt apparatus, multi-anvil apparatus and so on which enable the syntheses of diamond and cubic boron nitride have generally been used for the production of high pressure, high pressures above 10 GPa is difficult to achieve by using these apparatuses. The apparatuses can produce static high pressures and the sample volume can be enlarged up to 200 cm3. However, it is quite impossible to achieve high pressures in excess of 100 GPa in these apparatuses. High pressures in the 100-GPa region can be attained only with diamond anvil cells or dynamic methods.
However, the sample volume attainable in diamond anvil cells is not much larger than 10−9 cm3 at pressures above 100 GPa. Large-scale apparatuses are needed for ultrahigh pressure experiments using high explosives or gas guns which have generally been used in dynamic methods. The shock duration is extremely short and limited to a few microseconds. Furthermore, it has not been reported until now that ultrahigh pressures above 1 TPa are generated by these dynamic methods. The generation of ultrahigh pressure beyond 1 TPa has been achieved only in impact experiments using nuclear explosion or high-power lasers developed for the purpose of nuclear fusion. However, the duration of generated ultrahigh pressure cannot exceed a few nanoseconds.
Since the sample volume of diamond anvil cells is extremely small, the diamond anvil cell is impossible to use in industrial production. Furthermore, the production of ultrahigh pressures in excess of 1 TPa using diamond-cell technique cannot be expected. In the conventional dynamic methods, the duration of the high-pressure generation is extremely short. The applications of the dynamic methods to syntheses of materials via phase transformation are limited to irreversibly formed metastable phases. Thus, the conventional dynamic methods have application only in the extremely limited region.